Community & Resources

A Guide to Production Music Styles and Genres

Productiontrax.com offers great sounding royalty free music that is
stylistically accurate in a wide variety of musical styles and genres. As a
music-purchasing customer, it is important to know at least little about these
different styles, and for composers, it is absolutely imperative to understand
stylistic differences and idiosyncrasies in order to accurately create and classify
your music.

New Age and Ambient music covers a wide range
of instrumental performances that are often influenced by a combination of pop,
jazz, and classical music styles. New age is often easy listening, using soft
pads, pianos, orchestral sounds, and sounds that create the illusion of wide
open spaces, although some can be quite intense. Generally, most film
music will fall into the new age and ambient category or classical.

Royalty Free Classical Music is fairly self-explanitory.
This section contains royalty free music that is written in the style of the
classics, ie ala Mozart or ala Berlioz. This section also contains several recordings
of actual orchestras playing music by the great composers. These recordings
are specifically licensed for royalty-free usage by the composers who sell them.

Productiontrax.com offers a large Country and
Bluegrass section with music influenced by folk, pop, and country-western
and blues. Many of our royalty free music pieces are songs with lyrics performed
by some of the worlds most talented country vocalists, while some are instrumentals
geared towards giving your project that backwoodsy, home on the range sound.

The Jazz category is the largest category
of American-influenced music, containing blues, straight-ahead and bebop ala Charlie Parker,
Clifford Brown, and Miles Davis, more intense acid and fusion styles, as well
as the laid-back, funky contemporary sounds of smooth jazz ala Dave Koz. Jazz
is probably the most difficult music to authentically produce because it relies
on a unique vocabulary of improvisation and rhythms, but is probably one of
the most creative and interesting styles to use as underscores in your films
and multimedia projects.

Latin styles include Afro-Cuban and Salsa
music, which is rich in poly-rhythm and dance beats, brass, and percussion.
Prominent artists in this style include Arturo Sandoval, Pancho Sanchez, and
more. Other national styles represented in the Latin section include Brazilian
Sambas, Mexican music, Flamenco (with the guitars and the clapping), and traditional
chants and dances.